I cook today's dinner the night before. Walking in the door after a long day of work with 2 cranky kids is never fun. It's even less fun if I have to do a meal from scratch and the whining reaches the level of an opera soprano (that's the one with a really high pitch). So I cook Monday's dinner at the same time as Sunday's. Monday, after we've all eaten, I make Tuesday's dinner while the kids play and so on. It's never anything fancy, but doing it this way takes a huge amount of stress out of my day.
The other thing I do is make a big batch of pizza dough on Sunday, separate and roll out individual crusts, and parbake them. At that point, they can be stored in the fridge for a few days, or the freezer for months. And if you read this post, you'll understand that some weeks I go through a lot of pizza!
http://resistanteater.blogspot.com/2011/02/if-its-white-or-yellow-or-tan-or-beige.html